(response essay to Lyotard’s “Defining the Postmodern”)

Lyotard’s definition of postmodernity in “Defining the Postmodern” is the “process of analysing…and reflecting” on past situations. To analyse and reflect on past situations is to reconsider the past with the advantage of hindsight. Hindsight generates new perspectives. Lyotard’s definition of the postmodern condition points to the multiplicity of perspectives which characterizes it. An evaluation of the debates discussed in the essay will help to clarify the definition.

Lyotard draws on architectural theory to show the opposition between modernism and postmodernism. Both modernism and postmodernism recognize the condition of disorder, which results from the absence of a central authority. Modernism lays emphasis on the capacity of human beings to create essence or meaning (of existence) out of chaos. As an expression of this idea, modernist objects – including modernist architecture – are characterized by simplicity and minimalism in form. The shape of a modernist building caters to the function of the building. The function of a building is its essence; its shape must hinge on this essence. Ornamental pieces are noticeably absent from modernist buildings since these are not essential to their functioning. Minimalist buildings become idiosyncratic of modernism, as distinct from the architecture of earlier periods, for example the style of architecture associated with the Victorian period. Lyotard argues that the idea of chronology is itself a modern construct. Names are assigned to particular time periods in order to make them distinct from one another. In effect, the practice of architecture is also positioned in the diachronic framework. The ensuing assumption suggests that styles of architecture which are predominant in different time periods indicate “progress in the realization of human emancipation”. Founded on this assumption, Modernism, with its emphasis on freedom from conventions, is obliged to restrict its architecture to the minimalist style that has come to characterize the movement. Postmodernism, on the other hand, disregards the assumption. For the postmodernist, there is no “close linkage between the architectural project and socio-historical progress in the realization of human emancipation.” Postmodernism does not attempt to distinguish itself by specific ideologies. The tone of postmodernism is something close to bricolage - a miscellany of elements. The tone is one of diversity.

The second debate in the essay discusses the social condition that is the postmodern condition. Key to this discussion is the distinction between ‘development’ and ‘progress’. ‘Development’ refers to an increase or furtherance of ideas, knowledge and application of knowledge to life activities, while ‘progress’ is the extent to which mankind is benefited by development. In the following account, ‘development’ and ‘progress’ are to be understood as they have been defined. Lyotard argues that development in human life has not, in the past, resulted in an improvement in the quality of life. Perhaps for good reasons, human beings are never content with the way things are: society everywhere knows there are always ways to improve life conditions. Alteration in any aspect of life as an attempt at improvement, however, must necessarily lead to alterations in other aspects. The proposition of Darwinism in 19th century England is a case in point. The need of human societies to try to know more about and understand better aspects of life is natural: known and familiar things allows for feelings of security, whereas unknown things tend to threaten. Still, knowledge is unbiased. The bias occurs in the hands of human beings, in their application of knowledge. In this capacity, human beings are “too big” for the world. However, the accumulation of knowledge also facilitates learning. With a huge amount of knowledge, it seems wrong to just let things be. On the other hand, with the accumulation of information, there is a growing awareness of things still to be studied and figured out. Any social development is always accompanied with the realization that, while the society possesses the capacity for development and innovation through knowledge, there are aspects of existence that elude understanding. Even with the human creation of computers and machines, for example, the complexity of human brain is still inscrutable. Any society that is aware of the complexity of human life is necessarily aware of the fact that, because of the impossibility to comprehend completely the nature of existence, they are denied security – and inevitably happiness. In this sense, human beings are “too small” for the world. Human beings are “never at the right scale” for the world.

The human awareness of the complexity of existence, as discussed, is the corollary of the social accumulation of knowledge and preoccupation to come up with better means of existence. Often this complexity is only understood philosophically. Lyotard’s concern is that social development has split the modern society into two sections: one that is aware of the complexity of life, and another, which is still preoccupied with the basic need to survive. In contemporary terms, what Lyotard terms ‘complexity’ is nothing but the effects of globalisation. Globalisation broadens the scope of knowledge that is accessible to a given society. On the other hand, globalisation affects everyone – no matter whether one belongs to the section of society that comprehends complexity or to the other that still struggles to ensure survival. The split of society into two sections is the point where Modernism fails. Modernism trusts in the individual’s capacity to create order (therefore existential meaning) out of disorder, but it fails to anticipate that social development does not affect all members of a society in the same way. The Modernism project is, in this sense, totalizing. Postmodernism recognizes the flaw and failure of this totalizing impulse.

A good way to begin discussion on the third debate in the essay is to quote something Lyotard states in an earlier paragraph: “the quotation of elements of past architectures in the new one seems to me to be the same procedure as the use of remains coming from past life in the dream-work as described by Freud, in the “Interpretation of Dreams”. The avant-grade movement in art is assumed to be a tendency of Modernism. Lyotard argues against this assumption. To associate any particular tendency in art to a specific time period or society is to commit the same mistake that Lyotard has described in the previous paragraph as the “failure of the modern project.” Such an assumption claims that there is a single ideology that characterizes a particular society in time. To work with such an assumption is to automatically erase other possible perspectives that oppose the presumably dominant ideology. From this point of view, history is static. Lyotard suggests that the paintings of Manet or Duchamp are compared to the condition of anamnesis. Anamnesis, really, is a form of hindsight: it refers to the recollection or remembrance of the past. Considered with hindsight, past situations are likely to provide perspectives that may illuminate the present condition. History, in this sense, is dynamic. In “The Postmodern Condition”, Lyotard defines postmodern as “incredulity toward metanarratives”. Incredulity towards metanarrative (Grand Narratives) is rearticulating the postmodern recognition of multiplicity of perspectives. Metanarrative is understood as a comprehensive explanation of a historical phenomenon or experience. It is therefore understood that metanarrative carries a totalizing tendency. It gives off a sense of absoluteness; it leaves no space for disparate narratives. Incredulous towards metanarrative, the postmodern makes space for these narratives: any account of experience must encompass every available and possible narrative. Subaltern studies – which focusses on the re-examination of the South Asian historiography – is a case in point of the postmodern tendency against Grand Narratives. The re- examination calls attention to the fact that South Asian history was written exclusively from the colonialist perspective and the perspective of the small, privileged section of the South Asian society. This historiography has occupied the position of a Grand Narrative, while Subaltern Studies Collective takes on the project to collect narratives in order to produce an alternative historiography that is more encompassing.

One of the postmodern contentions is that history must remain open to interpretations. It must remain responsive to new readings. At this point one returns to the initial argument in this essay – that the postmodern condition accommodates multiplicity of perspectives.